I am pleased to announce the publication of two new books in the Ashgate Interdisciplinary Disability Studies Series: "Communication, Sport and Disability: The Case of Power Soccer" by Michael S. Jeffress (Nicholls State University, USA); and "Youth and Disability: A Challenge to Mr. Reasonable" by Jenny Slater (Sheffield Hallam University, UK).
“Communication, Sport and Disability” explores the intersection of of sports and disability, telling the story of power soccer - the first competitive team sport specifically designed for electric wheelchair users. Beginning in France in the 1970s, today, over sixty teams compete within the United States Power Soccer Association (USPSA) and the sport is actively played in over thirty countries. Using ethnographic research conducted while attending practices, games, and social functions of teams from across the nation, Jeffress builds a strong case that electric wheelchair users deserve more opportunity to play sports. They deserve it because they need the same physical and psychosocial benefits from participation as their peers, who have full use of their arms and legs. It challenges the social constructions and barriers that currently stand in the way. Most importantly, this book tells the story of some amazing power soccer athletes. It is a moving, first-hand account of what power soccer means to them and the implications this has for society.
More about this title can be found at the following link:
http://www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&title_id=1219171066&edition_id=1219186060&calcTitle=1
In “Youth and Disability,” Jenny Slater uses the lens of ‘the reasonable’ to explore how normative understandings of youth, dis/ability and the intersecting identities of gender and sexuality impact upon the lives of young dis/abled people. Although youth and disability have separately been thought within socio-cultural frameworks, rarely have sociological studies of ‘youth’ and ‘disability’ been brought together. By taking an interdisciplinary, critical disability studies approach to explore the socio-cultural concepts of ‘youth’ and ‘disability’ alongside one-another, Slater convincingly demonstrates that ‘youth’ and ‘disability’ have been conceptualised within medical/psychological frameworks for too long.
With chapters focusing on access and youth culture, independence, autonomy and disabled people’s movements, and the body, gender and sexuality, this volume’s intersectional and transdisciplinary engagement with social theory offers a significant contribution to existing theoretical and empirical literature and knowledges around disability and youth. Indeed, through highlighting the ableism of adulthood and the falsity of conceptualising youth as a time of becoming-independent-adult, the need to shift approaches to research around dis/abled youth is one of the main themes of the book. This book therefore is a provocation to rethink what is implicit about ‘youth’ and ‘disability’. Moreover, through such an endeavour, this book sits as a challenge to Mr Reasonable.
More about "Youth and Disability: A Challenge to Mr. Reasonable" by Jenny Slater can be found at the publisher’s website:
http://www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&title_id=20332&edition_id=1209351213&calcTitle=1
Please join me in congratulating these authors on their important and fascinating new books. And if you are interested in submitting a manuscript proposal for the Series, please email Claire Jarvis whose email is [log in to unmask] and myself: [log in to unmask]
We have many more excellent books in the works, and I look forward to them being widely read and discussed in the field.
Cheers,
Mark Sherry
Mark Sherry is Series Editor for the Ashgate Interdisciplinary Disability Studies Series
http://www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=5097&series_id=621&calcTitle=1
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